Yoda wrote:What is worse?1. a player taking roids in order to break some stupid baseball records that people deem as 'holy'2. a player taking away opportunities of others to fulfill their life long dream as a MLBer

I'd say 2 is just as bad if not worse than 1.

It obviously matters to who you ask but one is definitely more news worthy

Art Vandelay wrote:This idea that it's okay to break the rules to recover from injuries but not okay to break them to increase production is laughable to me. Personally, I think anyone should be able to take whatever substances they want for whatever reason, but let's pretend I don't think baseball players should take steroids or HGH...why would it be okay for player A to take them to recover from an injury and increase their production from 0 HR to 20 HR, but not for player B to take them to increase production from 30 HR to 50 HR?

What if someone takes them before hand to prevent an injury instead of to recover from one? Would that be more acceptable? If you think taking PEDs is wrong and against the rules, then the motivation for taking them shouldn't matter. The big argument against them seems to be that it forces others to use and put their health at risk in order to compete on a level playing field, well isn't the person taking them to recover using to give himself an unfair advantage as well? What about the kid in AAA who would have been called up and got his shot in the bigs is player A didn't recover so fast due to using?

Well, first you have the issue of frequency/quantity. The people who took to increase production took it methodically, regularly, over a long course of time, and after some obvious deliberation. The people who took to recovery from injury took it, in the cases that I've read, only sporadically, if not just one short period. And didn't seem that well-informed about their decisions... "Someone said this would help me get better faster so I gave it a shot" kind of thing. I'm not saying that they were under any sort of decisional duress, but it certainly wasn't as considered as the first group. And not nearly as often.

Secondly, you have the underlying motivations. Someone like Barry or Clemens juicing is all about the ego... I can just imagine Clemens sitting at home, reading the Duquette quote about being washed up and deciding he wasn't going to take it. Whereas for established players trying to get back, it's about the team. Andy Pettite would've had his job back once he rehabbed, HGH or no. He took it to get back into the rotation and help the team. I don't think that anyone is saying that those cases are, "OK" just that people feel more empathy for them. Maybe that's where you're getting tripped up.

Art Vandelay wrote:This idea that it's okay to break the rules to recover from injuries but not okay to break them to increase production is laughable to me. Personally, I think anyone should be able to take whatever substances they want for whatever reason, but let's pretend I don't think baseball players should take steroids or HGH...why would it be okay for player A to take them to recover from an injury and increase their production from 0 HR to 20 HR, but not for player B to take them to increase production from 30 HR to 50 HR?

What if someone takes them before hand to prevent an injury instead of to recover from one? Would that be more acceptable? If you think taking PEDs is wrong and against the rules, then the motivation for taking them shouldn't matter. The big argument against them seems to be that it forces others to use and put their health at risk in order to compete on a level playing field, well isn't the person taking them to recover using to give himself an unfair advantage as well? What about the kid in AAA who would have been called up and got his shot in the bigs is player A didn't recover so fast due to using?

Its not OK its DIFFERENT. Its a different circumstance and a different Moral action.

What is worse?1. a player taking roids in order to break some stupid baseball records that people deem as 'holy'2. a player taking away opportunities of others to fulfill their life long dream as a MLBer

Also, you're completely ignoring the idea of intent. In the first situation, that is definitely their intent, whereas in the second situation, that's only a side-effect. Their intent is to help the team. But we can play the hypotheticals game all day long... you may as well ask...

What is worse?1. a player taking roids, getting all sorts of attention, and causing thousands of high-school kids who worship him to follow suit2. a player who takes roids once but otherwise keeps clean and encourages others to do the same.

You can set up the choices to appear good/bad but at the end of the day there's still only one reality: you had players who were habitual users and players who took it sporadically. I say the habitual users did much more to tarnish the game and themselves.

acsguitar wrote:Its not OK its DIFFERENT. Its a different circumstance and a different Moral action.

What is worse?1. a player taking roids in order to break some stupid baseball records that people deem as 'holy'2. a player taking away opportunities of others to fulfill their life long dream as a MLBer

Also, you're completely ignoring the idea of intent. In the first situation, that is definitely their intent, whereas in the second situation, that's only a side-effect. Their intent is to help the team. But we can play the hypotheticals game all day long... you may as well ask...

What is worse?1. a player taking roids, getting all sorts of attention, and causing thousands of high-school kids who worship him to follow suit2. a player who takes roids once but otherwise keeps clean and encourages others to do the same.

You can set up the choices to appear good/bad but at the end of the day there's still only one reality: you had players who were habitual users and players who took it sporadically. I say the habitual users did much more to tarnish the game and themselves.

Are you kidding? Who is to say that Bonds and Clemens didn't take roids to help their team? So if a player comes out and says "I took roids to help my team" that makes it ok? You guys cannot be serious.

And how do you separate out the habitual ones from one time users? I suppose you have an answer for that also so I am all ears.

EDIT: If Sosa was even half the player now that he used to be then he would have no problems finding work. It has to do with his skills that he can't find a team to play for not because he was blackballed.

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." ~George Carlin

Matthias wrote:Bonds and Clemens doing it were a bigger deal because they used the drugs repeatedly over a course of years.

ACS's original argument was about how they deserved more punishment due to their position in the league and their motives behind their actions, not the amount that they actually did. I'm sure plenty of average players just trying to get into the league did just as many cycles of the stuff as Bonds and Clemens did. He, initially, was trying to make the argument, that those guys are somehow less guilty than stars like Bonds and Clemens, a point that makes no sense. That's the main idea I had an issue with.

Um no its not. My main argument was always to counterpoint Yoda's "Bonds is treated unfairly" they are all guilty but the public eye is going to see Bonds as more guilty due to the fact he was a heavy user.

It clearly wasn't always your argument considering what I cited above. But if you want to deny what you actually wrote down, that's fine with me.

Anyways Matthias Pwn'ed you for me so you can stop trying to make up arguments just for the sake of arguing against me.

Yoda wrote:Are you kidding? Who is to say that Bonds and Clemens didn't take roids to help their team? So if a player comes out and says "I took roids to help my team" that makes it ok? You guys cannot be serious.

And how do you separate out the habitual ones from one time users? I suppose you have an answer for that also so I am all ears.

EDIT: If Sosa was even half the player now that he used to be then he would have no problems finding work. It has to do with his skills that he can't find a team to play for not because he was blackballed.

Ummm... yah, actually.

Habitual user = player who took it consistently over a long period of time, at least one yearNon-habitual user = player who took it sporadically over short, defined periods of time, definitely less than a year, often less than a month

As far as Bonds/Clemens, it's pretty clear they have always been 24 & 1 guys; the idea that Roger took steroids to help his team just flies in the face of the last decade. The playing the half-season, the permission not to travel to games he wasn't pitching at, the flirtation between Houston, New York, and Boston... Clemens may be many a thing as a baseball player, but a, "team player" isn't one of them. And is it different? It makes people think differently about them because people care about intent. People care about what you were trying to do when you do things. But no, it doesn't make it, "ok". It just makes people empathize more.

But whatever... I feel like you're not having a discussion... you're just engaging in an internet pissing contest so there's really no reason to pursue this.

Matthias wrote:Habitual user = player who took it consistently over a long period of time, at least one yearNon-habitual user = player who took it sporadically over short, defined periods of time, definitely less than a year, often less than a month

So do you have a system to figure out who is habitual and non-habitual? Then we can really start handing out punishments accordingly. Great idea.

Matthias wrote:As far as Bonds/Clemens, it's pretty clear they have always been 24 & 1 guys; the idea that Roger took steroids to help his team just flies in the face of the last decade. The playing the half-season, the permission not to travel to games he wasn't pitching at, the flirtation between Houston, New York, and Boston... Clemens may be many a thing as a baseball player, but a, "team player" isn't one of them. And is it different? It makes people think differently about them because people care about intent. People care about what you were trying to do when you do things. But no, it doesn't make it, "ok". It just makes people empathize more.

But players try to be their best so that their team can win correct? Clemens wanted to play in Boston, NYY and Houston because he wanted to win a championship. You can argue the same thing. Bonds took roids in order to be better than he is so that he and his team can win the championship. Is this any different?

Matthias wrote:But whatever... I feel like you're not having a discussion... you're just engaging in an internet pissing contest so there's really no reason to pursue this.

See ya. Don't let the door hit you on your way out.

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." ~George Carlin

Lofunzo wrote:In a court of law, you expect a judge and jury to look at everything fairly. The court of public opinion doesn't work that way. You can go on and on about how unfair that is but we really need to look in the mirror. Do we really handle exact situations the same?? Do we really look at exact situations regarding different people/players the same each and every time?? We need to look in the mirror. Each and every 1 of us. I would expect that there have been times that those of us preaching about the fact that these players all need to be treated the same have, at some time, been hypocrites of this as well.

Lofunzo wrote:In a court of law, you expect a judge and jury to look at everything fairly. The court of public opinion doesn't work that way. You can go on and on about how unfair that is but we really need to look in the mirror. Do we really handle exact situations the same?? Do we really look at exact situations regarding different people/players the same each and every time?? We need to look in the mirror. Each and every 1 of us. I would expect that there have been times that those of us preaching about the fact that these players all need to be treated the same have, at some time, been hypocrites of this as well.

Matthias wrote:Habitual user = player who took it consistently over a long period of time, at least one yearNon-habitual user = player who took it sporadically over short, defined periods of time, definitely less than a year, often less than a month

So do you have a system to figure out who is habitual and non-habitual? Then we can really start handing out punishments accordingly. Great idea.

Selig repeatedly said in his press conference he would do so when the abuse affected the, "integrity of the game." Somehow I suspect the top two names on his list will be the same as mine.

Yoda wrote:

Matthias wrote:As far as Bonds/Clemens, it's pretty clear they have always been 24 & 1 guys; the idea that Roger took steroids to help his team just flies in the face of the last decade. The playing the half-season, the permission not to travel to games he wasn't pitching at, the flirtation between Houston, New York, and Boston... Clemens may be many a thing as a baseball player, but a, "team player" isn't one of them. And is it different? It makes people think differently about them because people care about intent. People care about what you were trying to do when you do things. But no, it doesn't make it, "ok". It just makes people empathize more.

But players try to be their best so that their team can win correct? Clemens wanted to play in Boston, NYY and Houston because he wanted to win a championship. You can argue the same thing. Bonds took roids in order to be better than he is so that he and his team can win the championship. Is this any different?

Bonds repeatedly made racially tinged remarks about McGwire to Bell, according to the excerpt, at one point saying of McGwire's chase of Maris, "They're just letting him do it because he's a white boy."

McGwire's historic season drove Bonds to wander into territory he had previously avoided, according to the excerpt.

"To Bonds it was a joke," one passage reads. "He had been around enough gyms to recognize that McGwire was a juicer. Bonds himself had never used anything more performance enhancing than a protein shake from the health-food store. But as the 1998 season unfolded, and as he watched Mark McGwire take over the game -- his game -- Barry Bonds decided that he, too, would begin using what he called 'the s -- .' "

Yoda wrote:

Matthias wrote:But whatever... I feel like you're not having a discussion... you're just engaging in an internet pissing contest so there's really no reason to pursue this.